Greetings from Valparaiso

So here we are in the old port town of Valparaiso, Chile. This, folks, is a wonderful city. It combines the gritty youth of Berlin with the old charm of Paris, is small enough that you can walk around the centre, has lots of hills with labyrinthian alleys, a ton of awesome graffiti, bins made from hand-decorated old oil drums, and, oh yes, it's by the sea.

Tomorrow evening we'll reluctantly head an hour and a half in land, back to Santiago, before continuing our journey south to Patagonia. There are, of course, volcanoes to climb.

(ps. we went paragliding. twas fun)

Un cambio de direccion, y el discubrimiento de la oceano (otra vez)

After sandboarding, and making the girl at the hostel really angry for getting sand everywhere in the bathroom, we left San Pedro, heading north for a change, arriving in the seaside town of Iquique at 5.00 this morning. Slept on the sofas of the hostel, drank some Pap, got abuse from a cafe owner and it is extremely likely that we will be hitting the beach shortly.

I hate sand.

Snowboarding on the moon

Kilometraje arido

Following our 3 day sojourn across Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, we hopped onto an extremely crowded little bus and crossed the border into northern Chile. The change was felt immediately: paved roads, complete with nice cars and signposts, well-kept buildings, and unfortunately, much higher prices. We were searched extensively at customs (I guess that's what happens when you go from somewhere that produces as much cocaine as Bolivia into somewhere more developed like Chile), and arrived at the little oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama. I can honestly say we have yet to find somewhere as pleasant as San Pedro on our travels. However, it's a little bit stranded in the middle of the Atacama, the world's most inhospitable and arid desert. The scorching temperatures and zero levels of humidity mean that absolutely nothing will grow out here. So of course, Steve and I hired some bikes to check out the nothing, and rode across the desert highway for a bit, happening on the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), an area of astounding moonscapes. We explored a little bit, finding a cave and crawling through it, climbing on rocks and getting lost, before getting far too hot and tired (this is a desert afterall) and scrambling back up the sand dunes and onto the highway for a downhill return to San Pedro.

This afternoon: sandboarding on a 300m high sand dune.

More foodstuffs

(Note: Click to view whole photos)


A portrait of two fools


We swam in this at 7 in the morning


Volcano land



Our ride


Riding across the Atacama desert, Chile

Photo update

Note: click to view whole photos


70 metres down, Potosi silver mines, Bolivia


Train graveyard, Uyuni, Bolivia


HOLDING LIT DYNAMITE, Potosi, Bolivia


One man and his Charango, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia


Our ride across the Salar, Bolivia

Feliz cumple Francis!

big shout out to Guini.

There would be photos, but the internet here is SO SLOW, it barely even loaded our blog. I think uploading photos is being a bit too optimistic.

So, I shall have to paint you a picture with my words.

After the mines yesterday, we wandered around Potosi. It was an alright city, though I may not be the best authority on such a thing. Everyone weve met has said how horrible Lima and Quito and La Paz were, but I liked them. The other travellers weve met complain too much. It annoys me a bit. Its ALL exciting.

Ended up in a batshitinsane coffee shop called El Farol, the sign on the door said open, but it was locked. We rang a bell and a little old lady scuttled out and let us in. Nothing could have prepared us for the decor; cardboard knights on the wall, crowns for lampshades, the biggest spoons in existence adorning the various surfaces, it was all weird beyond belief, as if we were stuck in some time capsule. We had some coffee, I asked if she had any desserts, she said she had orange juice. No thanks. About 20 minutes later the old lady declares she has a "chocolate liquor". Sure. She disappears downstairs and returns some time later with some kind of alcoholic chocolate pudding. Weird as this place is, the pudding was delicious. So we finish up and get the bill, sign her guestbook (20 years worth of visitors comments), and then she and a new arrival proceed to tell us that the decoration is very typical of colonial Potosi.

Now, either my spanish isnt as good as it should be and I misunderstood, or they were having us on, because there is no way that anyone anywhere at any point in history has decorated anything like this.

Except of course this off-her-gourd-but-totally-lovely old lady.

(reminded me of Beryl a little bit!)

So we went back to the hostel and watched Peep Show and The Lost World and Friends (hooray for cable tv!). To accompany this visual feast I went out and bought the biggest cheese rolls known to man. Today we got a bus (bags on the bus) 6 hours across the desert (with people standing, or should I say leaning on me, the whole way) to the small town of Uyuni.

Tomorrow morning we embark on a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni (the worlds largest salt flats), before hopping over the border to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.

Tonight we will feast at Minuteman Pizza. I am so excited about this, you have no idea. Its gonna be up there with the Amazon and Machu Picchu, fo sho. Serioso, Minuteman pizza today, and San Pedro in a few days. If only Mike Watt was here.





look at all the pretty pictures i can make trying to find the "apostrophe" key:
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